It's a month out from the 2012 draft in Pittsburgh and think we've maybe recovered (at least somewhat) from NDWS (NHL Draft Withdrawal Syndrome) to review some of the perceived top team draft performances by respective scouting staffs.

The normal defense of that completely sound argument is that it takes 3-5 years to judge a draft. It goes both ways.

Upon reading this article, its pretty worthless. No thought into it, literally comparing the draft to this guy's draft board pick for pick. Unless you're interested in that kind of thing, don't bother reading it.

Last edited by Idoit40fans on Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Would have been nice to see the Pens go the route of the Flames and trade down their 8th pick to pick up another 2nd round pick. They still could have gotten Pouliot in the mid 1st round. Overall though I really like what the Pens walked away with. The 2nd goalie pick was not a good value pick at all though.

My couple thoughts. Hard to see all of those solid wingers land on other teams when it was a desperate need of ours and we needed some in the hopper but oh well.

It is so hard to judge NHL drafts until like 3-5 years after as it takes these kids soooo long to develop to NHL ready players most of the time. Much like the MLB. I wish everything was like the NFL, you draft them when they are ready to play.

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:Hard to see all of those solid wingers land on other teams

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:It is so hard to judge NHL drafts until like 3-5 years after

Not to argue with you, because I can understand where you're coming from, but don't these statements conflict with each other...just a tad?

I guess if you add the word "prospect" you will see where I was coming from. We all know that NHL teams draft prospects, I just assumed that was understood, especially when you read the end of the sentence you cut off, specifically "in the hopper".

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:Hard to see all of those solid wingers land on other teams

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:It is so hard to judge NHL drafts until like 3-5 years after

Not to argue with you, because I can understand where you're coming from, but don't these statements conflict with each other...just a tad?

I guess if you add the word "prospect" you will see where I was coming from. We all know that NHL teams draft prospects, I just assumed that was understood, especially when you read the end of the sentence you cut off, specifically "in the hopper".

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:Hard to see all of those solid wingers land on other teams

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:It is so hard to judge NHL drafts until like 3-5 years after

Not to argue with you, because I can understand where you're coming from, but don't these statements conflict with each other...just a tad?

I guess if you add the word "prospect" you will see where I was coming from. We all know that NHL teams draft prospects, I just assumed that was understood, especially when you read the end of the sentence you cut off, specifically "in the hopper".

The word "prospect" after "solid winger" does add clarity, though I was being intentionally obtuse with my post. It's possible Pouliot could prove to be a far better player than any winger drafted around him, or, at the very least, Shero and his staff feel that's possible, hence why they passed on those "solid (prospects.)" The primary point of my post is that we really won't know how "solid" Forsberg, Grigorenko, etc are until 3-5 years from now...same with Derek Pouliot.

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:Hard to see all of those solid wingers land on other teams

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:It is so hard to judge NHL drafts until like 3-5 years after

Not to argue with you, because I can understand where you're coming from, but don't these statements conflict with each other...just a tad?

I guess if you add the word "prospect" you will see where I was coming from. We all know that NHL teams draft prospects, I just assumed that was understood, especially when you read the end of the sentence you cut off, specifically "in the hopper".

The word "prospect" after "solid winger" does add clarity, though I was being intentionally obtuse with my post. It's possible Pouliot could prove to be a far better player than any winger drafted around him, or, at the very least, Shero and his staff feel that's possible, hence why they passed on those "solid (prospects.)" The primary point of my post is that we really won't know how "solid" Forsberg, Grigorenko, etc are until 3-5 years from now...same with Derek Pouliot.

Agreed completely. I was listening to NHL Radio (XM) on my way to work this morning and they were talking about how the new NHL is all about developing your own prospects since there is so little team jumping with these crazy long-term deals. Given our lack of winger prospects and our desperate need for them in the next 5 years with Malkin and Sid locked down, you would've thought Shero would have done nothing but draft wingers for the past 3 years and he simply won't. So, every year, we all get to come onto LGP and argue about what wingers Shero should have traded for since that is our only option with no one in the hopper. Sounds like great fun!

steelhammer wrote:Would have been nice to see the Pens go the route of the Flames and trade down their 8th pick to pick up another 2nd round pick. They still could have gotten Pouliot in the mid 1st round. Overall though I really like what the Pens walked away with. The 2nd goalie pick was not a good value pick at all though.

You just don't know that though. There were other teams that also had Pouliot in their Top-10.

The normal defense of that completely sound argument is that it takes 3-5 years to judge a draft. It goes both ways.

Upon reading this article, its pretty worthless. No thought into it, literally comparing the draft to this guy's draft board pick for pick. Unless you're interested in that kind of thing, don't bother reading it.

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Idiot40fans.

"No thought into it" >> I do take offense to this part of the comment. Take away from the article what you want, but believe me, this article was a result of watching a ton of this year's eligible prospects for some time now (beyond this past season!). If you're not familiar with just some THW's draft work, take a peak at:1. The Next Ones 2012 Draft Guide (this is the 4th yr of the guide):http://thehockeywriters.com/2012-nhl-en ... next-ones/